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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Transmit: Editing on a remote server

For a while now, Transmit -- my hands-down choice for all things FTP -- has had a feature that I adore, which is the ability to edit text files from a remote server directly in the local Mac editor of my choice (in my case, that's the very swell TextMate. This little bit of wizardry makes it really easy to quickly fix code, tweak style sheets, or correct spelling without that nightmarish 90s ritual of the re-re-re-re-reupload (which is particularly painful when you're working on a live application).

Well, heck. I just figured out that the latest version of Transmit takes this to a another (yes! yet! another!) level by letting you edit images on a remote server. I just opened a .png in Photoshop and saw the saved results immediately appear on the live box. Disco.

While I don't completely understand the Elfen Magic™ with local temp files that makes this appear so seamless, I can tell you it's pretty freakin' ace in practice.

Plus, kids, do remember -- because I know some of you still don't know about or do this -- once you've set up your Transmit bookmarks to use "DockSend," you can upload a file to your remote directory just by dropping it on the dock's Transmit icon (or opening it via Quicksilver, etc.). I can't even imagine how many hours this would have saved me in 1996.

This is a truly great time to be alive.

Josh's picture

EditPlus for Windows has this...

EditPlus for Windows has this feature. You open up an FTP connection in the program, then open the file you want to work on. Edit it, click save, and it automagically saves to your remote file.

I agree, it's a kickass feature. A hell of a lot better than...

  1. Download local file.
  2. Open file in text editor.
  3. Edit and save.
  4. Go back to FTP program. Upload. Overwrite.
  5. See something's wrong.
  6. Go back to editor. Change code.
  7. Go back to FTP editor. Upload. Overwrite...
 
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